


some things we can't just get away from

by Astarisbroughtbacktolife



Series: Percy Jackson Feels [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aged-Up Percy Jackson, Angst, Angst and Feels, Comfort, Crying, Dark Percy, Dark Percy Jackson, Gen, Loss of Control, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Only by like 2 years though, Paul Blofis being a dad, Powerful Percy Jackson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23603047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astarisbroughtbacktolife/pseuds/Astarisbroughtbacktolife
Summary: Percy's powers are still growing, and he doesn't know what to do. Telling Paul Blofis is always a good place to start.
Relationships: Paul Blofis & Percy Jackson
Series: Percy Jackson Feels [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835623
Comments: 10
Kudos: 398





	some things we can't just get away from

Paul Blofis was drawing (or at least, attempting to draw) a blowfish. He was really meant to be marking his students' essays about Romeo and Juliet, but none of his students had really tried and he wasn’t really in the mood to read another essay which condensed one of Shakespeare’s most loved plays into: he loved her, she loved him, they both died. Besides, he was on babysitting duty whilst Sally met her publisher, and Estelle couldn’t have looked more adorable if she tried; especially not in those Frozen pyjamas. He was just adding spikes to his blowfish when he heard shuffling feet on the living room carpet. He looked up. Percy was standing there with his hands in the pockets of his grey sweatpants, black hair a mess as usual, staring intently at Estelle.

As if he could sense Paul watching him he turned his head to look at him, then made his way over to the kitchen table. Feeling slightly guilty Paul got back to his work. His actual work, not his drawing. He tucked the sketch under Mark Gunderson’s essay and scanned the first line. Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet are one of the most famous couples in literary history, Romeo is however, a paedophile. He’s nineteen, she’s thirteen, what was Shakespeare thinking? Paul wanted to put his head in his hands and cry but before he could get started, Percy’s voice sounded. He was much closer than Paul expected.

“Neat Blowfish.”

Paul looked up and grinned, pulling his drawing out from under the terrible essay, “I’ve been called it so many times I thought I should learn how to draw the damn things.”

“Well, it’s pretty accurate,” Percy said mock seriously, sitting down opposite him “and that’s high praise coming from a son of Poesidon.”

“Thank you.”

Paul looked back down at his essay, grimaced and added a few more spikes to the fish and they sat there in comfortable silence, the sound of ‘Show Yourself’ in the background. Paul had seen that movie so many times he thought he could probably quote it word for word by now. After a while Percy broke the silence.

“Hey, Paul,” he said hesitantly. There was something fragile and nervous in his voice which made Paul look up immediately. “Do you think- could I talk to you, maybe? I mean-” he said backtracking, bearing a striking resemblance to a deer in headlights, “if you’re busy it’s totally fine I get it-”

“Percy,” Paul said warmly, putting down his pen, “you know I always have time for you, what did you want to talk about?”

Percy looked relieved and panicked at the same time. Paul wasn’t quite sure what to say, he had never seen Percy like this before.

“What I want to talk about it-” Percy bit his lip, obviously it was difficult to speak aloud, “I specifically wanted my mom not to be here when I asked you.”

Oh. _Oh_ it was that-

“That came out wrong.” Percy said quickly, “it’s- I don’t want to worry her is all.”

“It’s not another quest is it?” Paul asked, worriedly, “If it is, you need to tell her Perce.”

Percy shook his head, “It’s not another quest. Look this was a bad idea, forget I mentioned it-” he was half up out of his chair before he stopped and sat down again. “No,” he said to himself quietly, “I need to do this.”

“Percy?” The boy looked up at him and Paul was surprised to see he looked frightened. He was just about to ask him what was wrong before Percy spoke.

“I’m afraid, Paul. I’m really, really scared.”

“What of?”

Percy took a deep breath and then said quietly, “Myself.”

With that one word Paul knew he was out of his depth, he had no idea how to handle this. But he had to try, he wouldn’t let Percy down when he needed him.

“In what way?” he asked, calmly.

“My powers,” he said simply, “the things I can do because of my dad, controlling water, making hurricanes, the whole lot. I thought they would stop growing when I got to eighteen or slow down or something, anything! I don’t know. But now I’m twenty, and they’re still growing. It’s almost every week now that I find I can do something new. Two weeks ago I found out I could do this,”

Paul watched as he stood from the table, pulled out a glass from the cupboard, filled it with water from the tap and returned to his seat. Percy flicked his hand and instantly, the water solidified into ice. Paul still wasn’t used to seeing Percy’s powers in action. He opened his mouth to speak but Percy ploughed on, it was almost as if he had to get everything out now, or it would never happen.

“I didn’t even mean for it to happen. I was in Central Park with Annabeth, we were sitting near the fountain then this girl knocked into her and then the entire fountain just-” he made a motion with his hands.

“Froze?”

“Yeah,” Percy nodded, “I didn’t even know it had happened until Annabeth pointed it out to me. It was the same on the Argo II when we were fighting Gaia. Piper told us about a dream she’d had and I exploded the toilets. I didn’t even realise it had happened. When I get frustrated at college in New Rome, things just start happening. I explode water bottles and flood the bathrooms, and people think I’m doing it because it’s funny but I-” he looked down at the floor, “I never meant to do it and I’m scared it’s going too far.”

He took in a deep breath of air and looked up at Paul. Paul had sat there patiently, not knowing quite what to say, trying to work out what he could say to be of any use.

“Look, Percy, I’m sure there’s a simple solution, could you ask Chiron or maybe even your dad about learning how to stop all these outbursts?”

“I have,” Percy admitted sadly, “Chiron says I just need to find some kind of tap to funnel it through which I can learn to switch off and on, and my dad just says the same mystical thing ‘the sea cannot be restrained’. Like that’s any help.” he said sarcastically, “It’s almost as if he _wants_ me to flood the entire island of Manhattan.”

“And could you?” Paul asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.

Percy looked up at him, confused. “Do what?” he asked, not really focusing on Paul, “Oh, flood Manhattan? Easily.”

Paul forced his eyebrows to stay where they were despite their powerful urge to rise upwards. It wasn’t so much the event itself Percy had said he could cause, but more the flippant, casual way he had said it.

“Do you remember when Apollo came to see me?” Percy asked, “I don’t remember if you were there, but anyway, I drove him and this girl Meg to camp and on the way we were-”

“Attacked,”

“Yes, and there was this farm with this water tank and, I didn’t even need to think, Paul, all I had to do was flick my hand and it flooded everything.” He was speaking very quickly now. “When I was younger, I had to concentrate on doing stuff like that and now I’m worried that things which I have to concentrate on now are going to become instinctive and last night I-” he cut himself off his eyes shining, he was about to cry but he needed to get this out, it was obvious.

“Last night I was walking back here and these two guys tried to mug me.”

Shock radiated across Paul’s brain “Percy! Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I wasn’t hurt, don’t worry. I was ashamed-”

“Of getting mugged? Percy that’s nothing to be ashamed of, we should go to the police-”

“Paul,” Percy said, cutting across him, “they didn’t steal anything.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It does Paul, because,” Percy’s hands were twisting in his lap, he looked awkward, “I did something _much_ worse than try and mug someone last night.”

Paul was silent. “What happened?” he asked slowly, fearing the worst.

“One of them came at me and I managed to knock him out, but then the other guy came up behind me with a knife was about to stab me right where my achilles heel used to be and-” Percy’s voice cracked a little, “I don’t know, I guess I reacted instinctively and pushed out my hand and then- then the guy was just stood there, this dumb look on his face and I wondered why he wasn’t trying to stab me, but then I realised it was beacuase he couldn’t that I was stopping him without even touching him. I was controlling his _blood_-” He stopped again, looking sick.

The severity and craziness of what he’d just been told washed over him as he replayed what Percy had just said in his mind. Percy had controlled someone’s blood. Even if it was self defence it was wrong. It was disgusting. It was barbaric. He looked up at his step-son and the emotions that had begun to rise in him faded. Percy’s head was in his hands and tears were dropping onto Mark Gunderson’s essay.

“Percy,” Paul said, what he hoped was reassuringly, “it wasn’t you. You didn’t mean for it to happen. Why don’t you try talking to Chiron again, maybe I could go with you? Or you could ask Jason or Nico if they’ve had similar problems?”

Percy shook his head, still looking at the table “They told me they haven’t noticed anything new in _years_.” His voice shook as he admitted it. “I don’t want to be able to control people, I don’t want to worry that I could start a hurricane if my favourite character dies in a show, I don't want to start an earthquake just because I didn’t get the grade I wanted, I don’t want to hurt people like last night. I just want these powers gone. I asked Annabeth if there’s anyone who can take power away but she said she’d never heard of anyone. I’d rather be powerless than have them - they’re stronger than I am and-. It feels good when I use them, Paul, it makes me feel like I’m in control, just for a little bit, and I know that they can make me want to hurt people, or maybe I wanted to hurt her, I don’t know but, I just wish they’d go away.”

It was heartbreaking to see him like this, scared of what he could do, scared he was going to hurt people, but Percy had said something in the middle of the speech which Paul had to know the answer to.

“Who’s ‘her’ Percy?”

“What?”

“You said ‘maybe I wanted to hurt her.’ Who’s her?”

Paul’s mind went immediately to Estelle. He couldn’t imagine Percy ever wanting to hurt her but after what he’d said about last night. No, it was impossible. Instantly, Paul hated himself for even thinking it. Percy was silent for a full minute before he answered, still looking resolutely at the table.

“The goddess, Misery.” he said finally, “Annabeth and I met her in Tartarus. We were turned into these ghost things, so we could pass through and she turned on us. There were these poisonous flowers all around her and Misery was crying. We had no weapons and it was all I could think of and well.” Percy breathed in a long breath and put on a forced cheerful tone, “turns out it’s not just water I can control.” The fake smile slid immediately off his face. “I tried to choke her, I remember standing there, forcing her tears back into her, back down her throat, I _wanted_ to see her drown, I _wanted_ to see how much of it she could take. I didn’t even care that I was hurting her, I just wanted to see her suffer.”

He stopped speaking abruptly and Paul suddenly realised the floor had been shaking and the water which had been frozen solid in the glass was now letting off steam. Paul knew that if he touched it, he’d be scolded. He couldn’t believe Percy had done that to a goddess. He’d known that as a son of Poseidon Percy was a strong demi-god, but to take on a goddess like that, to not only win a batlle, but to torture her as well. He wondered if he really did know his step-son as well as he thought.

“I only stopped because Annabeth told me too. She looked so scared of me. I’ll never forget her face when she told me some things weren’t meant to be controlled. If I had been on my own down there, I don’t think I would have stopped until she was dead. Maybe not even then.”

Paul took in what he’d heard and came to a decision. He knew that the boy in front of him was a good person. Fiercely loyal and brave, to even think the boy was evil was madness.

“Percy, I’m not saying it was a good thing you did, but it may have been necessary. I know you see your powers as a bad and unstable thing, but they’re also used for good. It depends on the person. You’re not a bad person Percy, which means your powers will never be used for bad things, they may not be good things, but they’ll never be bad. I don’t believe you have a bad bone in your body. Yes, you can sometimes make the wrong choices, we all can, but they’re never bad ones. You never try and hurt anyone for the hell of it.”

Percy looked up at him and gave a weak smile.

“You don’t know all the things I’ve done Paul, in Tartarus with Bob and his brother I-”

“Percy, I don’t need to know. If you want to tell me you can, but I don’t need to hear about the mistakes you’ve made and the people you may have hurt along the way to know that you’re a good person. To know that your powers aren’t what make you, you. You’re in control of yourself, your powers don’t control you. They may affect your decisions, they may affect what you do and how you do it, but they don’t control you, ultimately, you’re holding the reins and they’re just the horse.”

“Don’t get me started on horses.” Percy muttered but then nodded. “Thanks Paul, it means a lot that you’ve listened. I really just needed to tell someone all this. I don’t want to worry Annabeth or any of the others.” he stood from the table, brushing his hand over the essay he’d made a mess of and in an instant it was dry. Paul thought he’d probably just prevented Mark Gunderson getting an A. Being virtually unreadable would have probably improved the essay.

“Percy,” Paul said before he could leave, “have you talked to anyone else about this?”

The boy shook his head, “Just the bathroom mirror.”

“I think you should tell Sally.”

“No, I don’t want to worry her.”

“She would want to know.”

“I know, but I don’t want her to.”

Paul nodded. He could understand that. “Please will you let me come and see Chiron with you?” he asked “I think, if he realises how serious things could get, he’ll try and help us out.” By _‘how serious things could get’_ he’d meant the blood bending, and he knew Percy had picked up on that too.

Percy was still for a moment and then nodded. “Okay.” he said at last, “but only if you let me teach you how to draw a proper blowfish. I lied before, your one sucked.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted angst so I wrote some angst.
> 
> Hope you liked and stuff


End file.
